GUI issues to be fixed

[Const2k]

Hi there.

First of all - to BC Development Team - thank you guys. You make my favourite BT client :)

Surely, it's not perfect software, but what is?

Well, here are some things I think need to be reconsidered...

• Each time I start BC, I have to re-set priorities of my tasks. You see, I have some seeding tasks that should use more traffic then other. I use up/down limits in such cases, so this isn't critical. Not that I start BC very often, but I have lots of tasks. Nevertheless - if option is there - it must either work or be removed.
  
• Chat behaves odd. Even if someone is shown to be there (e.g. "Chat(1)"), I can see no one in user list. Older versions sometimes showed numbers instead of names there, but now chat seems to be degrading...
  
• Sometimes _all_ peers in active torrent's "Peers" disappear. Yet I still upload to them (~5-10 kB\s - most my torrents are slow - and speed varies). Right now I don't remember what "Seed/Peer[all]" says in these cases, but traffic goes out, that's for sure.
  
• "Logs" have no scrolling. Often I come back after week-end spent elsewhere, and I want to check whether my ISP has given me all possible "outer" IPs from it's own xx.xx.xxx.100-199 or 200-254 or something like this :)
  
• Trackers of active (and most likely, stopped) task are sorted only in order of adding. E.g. you can't easily add 4th tracker and later switch trackers in list from 1-2-3-4 to 3-1-4-2 order. And it's tricky to add "|" to mirror tracker, if you haven't done this on adding both of them.
  Why would I need this? Some sites count U/D ratio from the first tracker in .torrent's list only - and if their own tracker is 2nd there I get no ratio change on such site. I should be able to save .torrent with needed tracker first in list.
  
• Tracker cannot be contacted separately - only all of them at the same time (for each multi-tracker torrent). Of course, this can be used to hammer selected victim - but now only all of trackers can be hammered.
  Because of my dynamic IP I have to log in private tracker's site before starting task or I'll get an error message. BC stops contacting this tracker in this case, and I have to "Manual Connect" to all trackers instead of one private after visiting tracker's site.
  

I use WinXP Pro SP2 Corp. with 320kbps Cable connection to Internet; I'm behind my ISP's NAT and it keeps changing my "outer" IP-address 1-2 times per hour. My system (and BitComet) is online 24/7 (except rare crashes %) ).

Anything else I find concerning BC's GUI will be posted in this thread later.

I hope I help you make BC even better than it is now - with what I can. Best regards!

P.S. Of course, I'm using latest available BitComet - v.0.68 (as of this post's date).

[bitdave]

Thats some good stuff you posted and i agree with all of them. So these are all things that you have noticed after you updated to v0.68 or before? If these are still a problem in v0.68 then they do need some attention.

Trackers of active (and most likely, stopped) task are sorted only in order of adding. E.g. you can't easily add 4th tracker and later switch trackers in list from 1-2-3-4 to 3-1-4-2 order. And it's tricky to add "|" to mirror tracker, if you haven't done this on adding both of them.

Why would I need this? Some sites count U/D ratio from the first tracker in .torrent's list only - and if their own tracker is 2nd there I get no ratio change on such site. I should be able to save .torrent with needed tracker first in list.

While i agree its not easy it is not really that hard to set the order however you want.

Just go into the torrent's task properties and use cut-n-paste until you have the list of trackers arranged how you want them.

Maybe an Up/Down arrow for the tracker list would be nice.

[Const2k]

So these are all things that you have noticed after you updated to v0.68 or before?

I'm not quite sure of older versions, but everything written above applies to my current 0.68. BC 0.67 had crashed each xx minutes, and I had to revert back to 0.63. But 0.68 is OK for me now.

While i agree its not easy it is not really that hard to set the order however you want.

Of course, it's not hard... Just tricky :)

Maybe an Up/Down arrow for the tracker list would be nice.

I've got used to type everything needed myself, so I will accept just entering free own text in appropriate field :)

Just found out:

• Multiple adjacent peers in "Peers" can be selected when mouse is over their IP, not over any other info. Not needing urgent fixing, just strange...
  
• Disconnected peers have many clones of one user - either with different ports or with different (but very close) IPs (just like me %) ). They could be grouped under "+" sign or user should be able to remove them manually from disconnect list. IMHO these "ghosts" are of no use.
  
• Torrent's "Files" are given just like they are in torrent. This allows user to determine adjacent files that most likely share same piece. Sorting on other parameter is highly requested, so an appropriate turn would be adding column "File No." or smth alike so that files can be sorted by it too.
  

Well, in general, I think CPU-eating visual features should be minimised (don't go Azureus way) - maybe at cost of adding more items to context menu.

Flexible GUI would be the best. E.g., eMule has an option to show/hide "advanced" info; Opera's GUI can be set up absolutely freely (try clickable sidebar with buttons - that can be hidden/shown with one click); Direct Connect clients can modify/save/import color themes from each other (I like choosing needed columns there - on right-clicking their names); Winamp has numerous skins (well, this is surely CPU-consuming, but WTH? Let user select what he/she wants...)

2BC Stuff:

I know you guys do BC free of charge within your free time, so just read this and decide your ToDo's for yourself...

Just dreaming :)

[Const2k]

• Disconnected peers have many clones of one user - either with different ports or with different (but very close) IPs (just like me %) ). They could be grouped under "+" sign or user should be able to remove them manually from disconnect list. IMHO these "ghosts" are of no use.
  

They (*ghosts*) really should be ban-able - BitComet tries to re-connect to them, and, of course, fails. Not very funny, when Outpost reports that BitComet has 40 connections and 20 of them are to my *ghosts*... A waste of system's resources.